1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a multifunction apparatus that has a plurality of functions including a copier function.
2. Description of Related Art
A multifunction apparatus having a plurality of functions such as printer, copier, scanner, facsimile, and e-mail functions has become common. There are various types of multifunction apparatuses that provide different functions. In this explanation, multifunction apparatuses having a fusing apparatus are used, the fusing apparatus fusing an image to a recording medium through application of heat.
For a purpose of reducing power consumption during a standby period, many multifunction apparatuses are now equipped with an energy-save mode that reduces the temperature of the fuse apparatus during the standby period.
An multifunction apparatus having such an energy-save mode starts warming up when it detects a document placed on a document reader or an operation from an operation panel (e.g., Related Art 1). In other words, the warm-up is initiated only after a user directly performs a certain operation on the multifunction apparatus. The period starting from the beginning of the warm-up to the time the heater reaches a predetermined temperature (warm-up period) is usually tens of a second to a several minutes, depending on the type of the multifunction apparatus. In addition, after a copy/print job is completed, the heater unit is usually kept at a predetermined temperature for a predetermined time period, in order to allow a quick execution of another job. When there is no immediate job, the multifunction apparatus usually transitions to the energy-save mode.
[Related Art 1] Japanese Patent Laid Open Application 10-315535
With the above-described configuration that initiates the warm-up only after the user directly performs a certain operation on the multifunction apparatus, the user is required to wait in front of the multifunction apparatus during the warm-up period. Therefore, it is desirable to shorten the time the user spends waiting for the multifunction apparatus to warm-up. In addition, with the above-described configuration that makes a transition to the energy-save mode only after a predetermined time period upon a job completion, it is effective when a series of jobs are performed on the multifunction apparatus. However, when jobs are not performed in sequence, it causes an inefficient use of the energy. Further, when the setup time (for transitioning to the energy-save mode) is set short, the multifunction apparatus can quickly move into the energy-save mode in a short period of time. However, this may inconvenience the user who intends to perform a following job but finds the multifunction apparatus transitioning back to the energy-save mode before the next job is ready.